Common ground found on Robert Moses Parkway North designs

by jmaloni

Sat, Feb 23rd 2013 07:00 am

Three remaining Robert Moses Parkway North alternative designs are in agreement regarding the section of roadway between Main Street and Findlay Drive. (Image courtesy of the scoping report presentation.)

Viewing 1 of 2

by Joshua Maloni

Interests from both Niagara Falls and the
River Region expressed satisfaction Wednesday with the three remaining Robert
Moses Parkway North alternative designs. At an open house inside the Conference
& Event Center, State Sen. George Maziarz, Assemblyman John Ceretto and
Niagara Falls Mayor Paul Dyster spoke favorably of the designs - each of which
calls for the ultimate removal of RMP road from Main Street to Findlay Drive.

Alternative No. 6 calls for complete
removal of the RMP from Niagara Falls to Lewiston. Alternative No. 4 suggests a
combination of existing parkway, a new road and portions of Lewiston Road along
that same path. Alternative No. 3, which suggests keeping the existing RMP
between Findlay Drive and Lewiston, received the most support from Maziarz,
Ceretto and Mark Thomas, the Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic
Preservation western district director.

"I've been very vocal,
for a number of years now, that ... alternative three was the way to go, which was redesigning the parkway from Findlay
Drive on to Main Street into the city," Maziarz said. "I can tell you that I
had the occasion in August, September and October going door-to-door in the
City of Niagara Falls - particularly in the DeVeaux neighborhood - and people
in DeVeaux were very strong about not wanting additional thousands of cars into
the DeVeaux neighborhood (Lewiston Road would become a main thoroughfare under
design No. 6); air quality issues; safety issues regarding traffic coming by
the Maple Avenue School. This was a proposal, really, that was supported (a)
long time by the Parkway Preservation Committee and Lewiston and Porter, was
(to) redesign the parkway from Findlay Drive into the city."

Alternative No. 3
calls for continuous vehicle access to all gorge parks and overlooks via
Whirlpool Street and via partial reuse of the former RMP. Traffic would
integrate with the existing street grid. A new multimodal trail would allow for
uninterrupted access to all gorge parks and overlooks, with native landscapes
restored in all reclaimed areas.

"This Robert Moses
Parkway, I think, has become a symbolic challenge for our community, trying to
find a consensus to move forward with some sort of project that we could all
agree on," Dyster said. "What's basically happened here - and maybe this is
just a happy coincidence - but the three alternatives that are being advanced
all have a common element in them, and that is the removal of the Robert Moses
Parkway as it currently exists between Main and Findlay, and its replacement
with some sort of a scenic boulevard on the alignment more or less of the
existing Whirlpool Street. And that's something that is very important to us as
the city, because we have a lot of reasons to want that part of the project to
move quickly."

Christopher
Schoepflin, president of USA Niagara Development Corp., said, "I think it's a
really good day for Niagara Falls and its northern neighbors. The three
alternatives going forward not only pay attention to the Niagara Falls
waterfront, but it also deals with the very vital north-south connectivity to
Lewiston and Youngstown."

"We don't mind
reconfiguration, as long as it's a basic change that everyone can live with,"
said former Village of Lewiston Mayor Richard Soluri, speaking on behalf of the
Parkway Preservation Committee.

"I also support,
along with Sen. Maziarz, No. 3, that there's this reconfiguration from Findlay
to Main Street, and then we keep the Robert Moses Parkway at some end from the
rest on to service the other areas," Ceretto added. "I'm also excited that all
three plans today that we're looking at opens up the waterfront in downtown
Niagara Falls. I see growth to our businesses coming from the waterfront areas
inland toward the city to Main Street."

In phase one of the
design and construction process, the common points shared among the three
alternatives include an expansion of the Discovery Center and the Aquarium of
Niagara's footprint; the connection of these tourism destinations and the Maid
of the Mist via a new shared park road entrance; a redesign of Whirlpool Street
as a park-like road; new curbside overlooks, stairs and ramps to the lower
level of the former RMP; the removal of the Whirlpool overpass; park road intersection
at Findlay Drive; a new multimodal trail designed to tie into all intersecting
sidewalks; and native landscape restoration on reclaimed pavement areas.

"Alternative three
really does add more real estate to Niagara Falls State Park," Thomas said. "It
extends it, basically, all the way up to the Whirlpool area. That's the largest
expansion of Niagara Falls State Park since its inception. That's a significant
point (that) shouldn't be lost here.

"It allows us to deal
with transportation in a way that gets the traffic where it needs to go, but
also beautifies that entire zone and eliminates lanes of traffic, which are
certainly not in any need in this day and age."

It
will cost an estimated $17.8 million to complete phase one. The panel of
speakers was encouraged that financing could come "sooner, rather than later,"
as Dyster said. Maziarz and Ceretto said funding could come from Gov. Andrew
Cuomo and the "Buffalo Billion" initiative. The state senator also suggested
utilizing the Niagara Falls Bridge Commission and Greenway money.

Six alternative
designs were presented and discussed at an open house in June 2011 at the
Niagara Falls Public Library. Public feedback was recorded and, per the
directive of project stakeholders (State Parks, the State Department of
Transportation, USA Niagara and the City of Niagara Falls), Parsons
Transportation Group narrowed the field to three alternative designs.

When asked why it
took 20 months to get to the next stage of the scoping process, Thomas said,
"It's a tremendous amount of work."

"First of all, the
study work had to be completed," he explained. "All of the comments that were
put in from the last public meeting that we had at the library were massive,
and all those had to be responded to. They're in the (draft scoping report)
document. There's traffic studies; engineering work that had to be done in
terms of determining whether the options were viable. So, there was a lot of
work that went into this. And then all the partners had to come to a consensus
that we wanted to move forward with the alternates that are in front of the
public today. It's a lot of work, and it's wrapped up now to the point where
we're back to the public for comment."

The next step in
reconfiguring the RMP is "to finish the work up," Thomas said. "To take the
public comments, respond to those again in the document, publish the final
(scoping report), and then while we're doing that, we'll be raising the money
for the engineering designs to move forward."

No one should expect
to see drastic changes on the RMP in the immediate future. Stakeholders and
corridor project consultants have said that, even in a best-case scenario,
construction would not begin until late 2014 or early 2015.

Most of the talk
Wednesday centered on the section of road from Findlay Drive to Main Street.
There was little discussion on what will become of the RMP leading to Lewiston
and Youngstown. In alternative No. 3, this second phase would cost an estimated
$34.2 million (for a total project cost of $52 million) to, among other things,
redesign a park road. Alternative No. 4, and its new hybrid roadway to the
River Region, would cost $30.2 million ($49 million total). Alternative No. 6,
the removal of the RMP, would cost $15.5 million ($33 million total).

Thomas Donohue of Parsons
said the Federal Highway Administration could become a major participant in the
funding. He also said phase one could be approved and carried out concurrently
with phase two planning.

Dyster said the key
to moving forward with phase one is "people being willing to postpone their
disagreements with what happens north of Findlay into this next phase of
discussion."